Jefferson Davis' Speech at Missionary Ridge, Ga.

[October 10, 1863]

He began by paying a warm tribute to their gallantry, displayed on
the bloody field of Chickamauga, defeating the largely superior force of
the enemy, who had boasted of their ability to penetrate to the heart
of Georgia, and driving them back, like sheep, into a pen, and protected
by strong entrenchments, from which naught but an indisposition to
sacrifice, unnecessarily, the precious lives of our brave and patriotic
soldiers, prevented us from driving them. But, he said, they had given
still higher evidence of courage, patriotism, and resolute determination
to live freemen, or die freemen, by their patient endurance and
buoyant, cheerful spirits, amid privations and suffering from
half-rations, thin blankets, ragged clothes, and shoeless feet, than
given by baring their breasts to the enemy.

He reminded them that obedience was the first duty of a soldier,
remarking that when he was a youth a veteran officer said to him: "My
son, remember that obedience is the soldier's first duty. If your
commanding officer orders you to burn your neighbor's house down, and to
sit on the ridge-pole till it falls in, do it." The President said,
this is an exaggerated statement of the duty, but prompt, unquestioning
obedience of subordinates to their superiors could not be too highly
commended. If the subordinate stops to consider the propriety of an
order, the delay may derange the superior's whole plan, and the
opportune moment for achieving a success or averting a defeat may be
irretrievably lost.

He alluded to the boast of our enemy that, on the occupation of East
Tennessee, they would heavily recruit their army and subjugate us with
the aid of our own people; but the boast had not been fulfilled He said
the proper course to pursue towards the misguided people of East
Tennessee was, not to deride and abuse them, but to employ reason and
conciliation to disabuse them of their error; that all of us had once
loved and revered the old flag of the Union; that he had fought under
its folds, and, for fifteen years, had striven to maintain the
Constitution of our fathers in its purity, but in vain. It could not be
saved from the grasping ambition for power and greed of gain of the
Yankees, and he had to relinquish it. The error of the misguided among
us was, that they clung longer than we to what was once a common
sentiment and feeling of us all, and, he repeated, they must be reasoned
with and conciliated.

In closing, he expressed his deep conviction of our eventual success
under the blessing of Providence, and expected the army of Tennessee,
when they should resume active operations, not to pause on the banks of
the Cumberland, but to plant our banners permanently on the banks of the
Ohio.--This, he believed, would be done. As the humble representative
of the people he returned their grateful thanks to the army of Tennessee
for what they had already accomplished, and fervently invoked the
blessing of Almighty God upon all officers and men comprising it.

From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 10, pp. 20-23. Transcribed from the Marietta (Ga.) Confederate in the Richmond Dispatch, October 28, 1863.